“President Donald Trump met with Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook on Wednesday to discuss trade issues as the technology industry grapples with a U.S. spat over import tariffs with China, a manufacturing hub for the iPhone maker and other companies,” Roberta Rampton and David Shepardson report for Reuters. “Trump, in a morning tweet, said he was looking forward to seeing Cook. ‘We will be talking about many things, including how the U.S. has been treated unfairly for many years, by many countries, on trade,’ he wrote. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Wednesday afternoon that the meeting was under way, and that “the primary focus” was to discuss trade. A White House official said later the meeting had concluded, but there was no word yet on details of the discussions.”

“Apple, the world’s largest technology company, and other hardware makers have deep ties with China, where many of their products are built for export around the world,” Rampton and Shepardson report. “U.S. and Chinese officials have been working to resolve the dispute. On Tuesday Trump said there was ‘a very good chance’ the two countries could reach a deal as a U.S. delegation prepared to head to China in a few days.”

Looking forward to my meeting with Tim Cook of Apple. We will be talking about many things, including how the U.S. has been treated unfairly for many years, by many countries, on trade.

“A White House official said Cook also met on Wednesday with the director of the White House National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow,” Rampton and Shepardson report. “Additionally, CNBC broadcast footage of him heading from the White House to the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office.”

“After a rocky start during his election campaign, when Trump urged his supporters to boycott Apple and criticized the company for making its products in China, Cook has become one of his favorite go-to CEOs. He has mentioned Cook, who he has called a ‘good guy,’ by name at least 10 times during public remarks – including during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January – as well as during several high-profile interviews,” Rampton and Shepardson report. “The president frequently uses Cook and Apple as an example of how he says his tax cut package is creating jobs. Cook was among a small group of CEOs invited to Trump’s first state dinner at the White House on Tuesday night, held in honor of visiting French President Emmanuel Macron.”

Regardless of the lack of knowledge by these “people that live outside of the US” whom you claim to represent in toto, the trade imbalance is obvious and “the U.S. has been treated unfairly for many years, by many countries, on trade.”

Regarding the Paris Agreement: It WAS a perfect example of liberal feel-good bullshit that cost us trillions in return for nothing.

The Paris Agreement that Tim Cook and the rest of the SJW love(d) so much would have resulted in over $2.5 trillion in lost U.S. GDP by 2035. The agreement would have cost Americans an extra $30,000 per family of four (in higher energy prices) and some 400,000 lost jobs (200,000 in manufacturing alone).

‎Since Obama signed the non-binding Paris Agreement without congressional approval, American taxpayers – WHO WERE NOT REPRESENTED DUE TO OBAMA’S UNILATERAL MOVE; i.e. TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION – have forked over nearly $1 billion to a green energy slush fund that will be redistributed to most of the other 170 nations who have signed the pact.

Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100.

0.2 Celsius is not worth $2.5 trillion; $30,000 per family of four; 400,000 lost jobs.

First whatever: we’ll be happy when you give up carrying water for the most corrupt, least productive, totally inept administration in recent US history.

1) You display no greater knowledge than non-US residents, and probably less because your posts are mostly unvarnished cut and paste political propaganda sourced from unreliable and/or unreferenced political hacks. Exactly the opposiite of objective, wise, critical decision making.

2) The Paris Agreement was not liberal feel good. It was a successful act of diplomacy that gained commitments from the most polluting emerging economies to stop killing the planet. To you, it would benefit US industry by forcing emerging nations to step up to the same health and safety standards that you take for granted in your cushy first world environment. But that didn’t register with you, did it?

3) Your ass-ejected numerical projections fail to take into account the healthcare costs that are directly related to disease caused by pollution. You want to wind back the clock to the Big Coal era, i get it. But you fail to see that it would shorten people’s lives or cost them their savings in healthcare bills. Go ahead and read what fine organizations like the American Lung Association has to say about it.

4) Signing an international agreement is not taxation. Reread your precious Constitution, snowflake. The president takes the lead in establishing diplomacy with the other 95% of the planet’s population.

5) You think 0.2 degrees Celsius sounds like such a small number, because local temperature variation is large every day. But you clearly don’t understand at all the climate science. If you take the thermal energy of 0.2 degrees C rise across just the volume of ocean water, that equates to HUUUUUUUUUGE amounts of energy. That energy is not equally distributed and when it is released, violent storms occur. So you can go ahead and whine next that the federal costs we all bear for localized hurricane cleanup efforts are TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION, or maybe you want to demand that FEMA be defunded so that you can make America less “socialist”.

Maybe you think the role of the US government is make Apple shareholders richer. You have clearly sided with the whiny minority right wing extremists who think that schools should be operated only on a for-profit basis and all roadways of any kind should have toll booths and private owners. That is not the America the rest of us want. You, sir, are off your rocker.

It is good to see that your loyalty to Prince Trump has prevented you from making stupid sucker punches at France. Turns out they have more in common with the USA than the closed minded rabble in the USA was goaded into believing by the right wing extreme media after all.

The reason that Cook attended the state dinner is so that he could get a free dinner and hobnob with international socialites. There is nothing Cook is going to do to pound economic sense of free trade into Trump’s stupid little orange head.

For a person whining about costs, have you tallied how much more you will pay for commodities thanks to Prince Trump’s market-warping “I pick the winner” tarifs? Didn’t think so.

“carrying water for the most corrupt, least productive, totally inept administration in recent US history.”

I copied this from another MDN poster and my apologies for not giving proper credit. Stand by the post.

Accomplishments under President Trump you are blind to:

1) Selecting Neil Gorsuch for The Supreme Court.
2) Ending the fraudulent and disastrous climate agreement.
3) Killing The Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal.
4) Actually cleaning up the VA instead of just talking about it. Over 850 incompetents fired already.
5) Decreasing illegal immigration by 74%
6) Restricting the immigration of people who hate us from predominantly anti American countries.
7) Canceling 876 obama era regulations.
8) Freezing all Federal Hiring Outside of the Military.
9) Approving The Dakota Access Pipeline And The Keystone Pipeline.
10) Ordered Federal Agencies To Cut Two Regulations For Every New One They Propose.
11) Putting Out An Executive Order Asking The DOJ And Homeland Security to Withhold “Federal Funds, Except As Mandated By Law” From Sanctuary Cities.
12) Actually begin the dismantling of obamacare.
13) The start on the wall.
14) Reinstating The Mexico City Policy.
15) Giving little girls their restrooms back.
16) Stopping the transsexual madness and allowing the military to put its actual job above political correctness!
17) DESTROYING obama’s JV ISIS TEAM!
18) Putting the left’s/Fake New’s anti America, anti Constitution bias so clearly on display so that even the blind can see it.
19) Enabling America to become energy self sufficient by unleashing our own energy industry.
20) Record unemployment particularly for blacks and Hispanics.

Look forward to your numbered list of serious DENIALS.

Most corrupt and inept administration? Mike, you rank right up there with the most politically IGNORANT …

Most of that list is nothing to brag about.
and
The “start on the wall” is not anything having to do with Trump. It was an already programmed part of an existing border project. The budget authorizes not one cent for Trump’s stupid wall.

GoeB

Wednesday, April 25, 2018 - 9:23 pm ·

“Most of that list is nothing to brag about.”

I beg to differ. Most of that list from a first time freshman politician is nothing short of remarkable in such a short period of time.

I’ll tell you what. You provide a list of Obama’s legislative remarkable achievements and I will be more than happy to get back to you how many President Trump has rescinded as BAD policy.

“The “start on the wall” is not anything having to do with Trump.” FINE.

“The budget authorizes not one cent for Trump’s stupid wall.”

Correct. But it’s not over by a long shot. And I thought you said and I quote, “The “start on the wall” is not anything having to do with Trump.”

When you are less confused and get with reality please alert the rest of the class …

Amazing that the you complain about a trade imbalance but Your President and Congress passed- along party lines- a tax package that will explode the deficit and national debt, a significant part of which will be funded by sales of debt instruments to foreign companies, governments and individuals.

When we pay on the new Trump debt, America will be exporting Dollars overseas- not value added products or services. That is like exporting cash, and we get nothing in return for the expense.

I did not vote for Clinton or Clinton or Obama and am not a Democrat. So let us look at Trump for who and what he is and what he has done.

GoeB

Friday, April 27, 2018 - 2:14 pm ·

“I did not vote for Clinton or Clinton or Obama and am not a Democrat.“ I know that after reading it a hundred times. Does not matter who you voted for. What REALLY matters is the unvarnished truth FREE and UNENCUMBERED from partisanship. And you won’t get that from the despicable DEMOCRAT DOMINATED MEDIA …

Sadly, this is true. The rest of the world is a lot more savvy on trade than Trump, who is seen as a bizarre embarrassment.

This is someone whom the world knows manufactures most of his own brand retail goods (and those of his daughter), in the Far East and imports into the United States for sale there.

Fortunately, the American people have the Department of Trade and businesses like Apple to stabilise Mr President when he postures on trade — thinking that he’ll look big in front of his fans — when, unfortunately, he looks foolish outside America.

As President Macron said this week (I paraphrase): “There is no place for nationalism and protectionism in world trade”, that’s how it works.

USA businesses are famous worldwide (feared even) for driving extremely hard bargains on Free Trade Agreements. We, in turn, find it very difficult to watch Mr Trump wrecking trade with some tragically uninformed and ill-advised words, guaranteed to disrupt free trade. It’s like advising an excitable pre-teen boy in a jewellery store with a hammer in his hand to “Stay calm”.

Even if the discussions are productive in the moment, it’s hard to believe anything will stick with a man as capricious and incurious as Donald Trump. He’s got the memory of a goldfish and changes his mind more often and more abruptly than the wind changes direction.

Yup, the World Trade Organization (WTO) that is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. Now if a civilized country is treated unfairly they only have themselves to blame or bring it to the WTO to be resolved. For others, well pass the blame to others, whine, and try to bully yourself through it.

Apple’s home nation brought it upon themselves but they lack the spine to take responsibility for their actions like the gutless cowardly scum nation it is, but then again what do you expect from a torturing terrorist nation,

Oh come on TowerTone, you can do better than that. I think AAPLfanboy has a very good point. No one has been pointing a gun to your head to make these so called horrible deals. No one has been abducting your negotiators and torturing them to get them to sign these so called worse deals ever.

So what gives? I mean your country has been whining on so many of the relationships it has, the UN, the Paris accord, the Trans Pacific partnership, NAFTA and when it comes to trade, well it’s all about war.

How does pointing that out make one spineless? Not that I mind, it’s a heck of a lot better than being spineless and a citizen of a terrorist nation.

Now that is a point worth discussing. America is not a “terrorist nation” as RW has often whined about. Instead, past US administrations led all the world organizations listed here plus many more (NATO), championed worldwide free trade and democratic processes, and expended humanitarian aid throughout its entire history.

The current administration, however, does not know that Puerto Rico is part of the USA and therefore can’t seem to find the resources to restore infrastructure damaged by one of the worst hurricanes in recorded history — a predicted event tied to a warming climate that the current administration and its delusional base refuses to bother investigating. They are too busy lawyering up to defend the string of corrupt cabinet members from the overflowing DC swamp that Trump filled.

Road Warrior

Thursday, April 26, 2018 - 4:53 pm ·

That’s a very patriotic post Mike and from a historical perspective it’s top notch. I find it incredible to believe that invading another country on false premise and organized government torture of foreigners is part of championing humanity.

So the points remain:

– The US has ‘allowed’ themselves to be treated unfairly. Blame their trade negotiators. That’s AAPLfanboy’s comment and it is worthy of discussion but I don’t see much ado about it from your post save for pointing out how the country has championed world free trade and to that idea I will certainly agree. Doesn’t seem what the current administration is on about.

– Nations that torture and disrespect the sovereignty of other countries (like invading on a whim) are terrorist nations. Now you want to bring forth ideas that torture advances civilization, how people who torture get better jobs, make more money, get divorced less bring it on, but when until I see evidence of the contrary, torture is a practice by terrorist, and Apple’s home nation fits the bill. It’s not a whine, it’s pointing out the obvious to the oblivious.

GoeB

Thursday, April 26, 2018 - 9:45 pm ·

What a tortuous definition of a “terrorist nation” from a clueless Canadian … USA!🇺🇸USA!🇺🇸USA!

GoeB

Thursday, April 26, 2018 - 8:42 pm ·

“America is not a “terrorist nation” as RW has often whined about.“

Amen Mike. I’m tired of this Canadian coward making FALSE ACCUSATIONS and IGNORING the true terrorist nations he can’t bring himself to name for fear of being WRONG, all along …

Since you are the number one MDN poster constantly bad mouthing, insulting, denigrating, hating, the good citizens of the USA while calling ALL OF US “citizens of a terrorist nation” I offer the following questions:

1) Name “terrorist nations” that cut off prisoner heads while they are still alive on video.

2) Name “terrorist nations” that burn bodies in cages while they are still alive on video.

3) Name “terrorist nations” that line up hooded Christian captives on a beach and execute them in cold blood.

4) Name “terrorist nations” that stone women in public.

5) Name “terrorist nations” that execute gay citizens.

Let’s see if you run away because you are intellectually incapable and scared of answering the questions …